It's a damn shame that we can't have more news like the whale story.....but happening between members of the same species, i.e., us. We're so busy trying to screw somebody.... figuratively or literally.... swindle them, verbally or physicaly abuse them, murder them, torture and torment them, bully them or bury them. Human beings are deep down inside a jealous, greedy bunch of bastards, who get an almost morbid ejaculation when they can make another human being bend over in pain and humiliation. We're worse than chimpanzees. The only difference is that they are hairier than we are and physically stronger....and sometimes are prettier than some of the girls I've dated.
I'm not so sure that's the right way to look at it, though I've heard this sentiment before: Animals get along better than humans (you may have seen the YoutTube video of the panhandler with his dog-cat-rat act).
I watch the chickadees fighting over the seed thing out front, and the hummingbirds divebombing each other at their feeder. My (de-balled) cat gets in terrific squalls with a neighbor cat who dares to enter his territory, and has almost lost an eye arguing with a raccoon.
Meanwhile, you can go to a ballgame where 20,000 people sit there in perfect peace and harmony -- even on days when a couple of drunks get into a fight in the parking lot, the other 19,998 people are rubbing shoulders with no problem. Walk at the mall and see hundreds of people milling with no bad intentions in their minds.
When a disaster happens, watch as, at first, everyone freezes. But that's just because nobody knows what to do in an unfamiliar situation, or how even to evaluate the situation. But as soon as one person "takes charge" and starts directing, everybody jumps in to help out with a will -- rescue the people trapped in the car before flames blow it up, try to save a person having a seizure in that same mall, comfort a neighbor whose house is on fire, though they haven't exchanged two words with that neighbor in ten years.
People are mostly good,most of the time, just as you and I are. GIven the chance, and with good leadership or knowing what to do, they will *want* to do the right thing. And sometimes people are assholes - greedy, fearful, resentful, jealous, territorial. And a few people are assholes all the time, just as a few people are saints all the time.
Some fishermen see an entangled whale. If somebody shouts out, "Keep away, that tale will crush you! Don't be a fool! He'll get away eventually, leave it alone!" and they'll all back away and watch in confusion, guilt, and fear. If somebody shouts, "Let's save him! He'll die! We've got to do it! Here, give me a hand! Where's that knife? Joe -- hold this end for me!" and everybody will jump in and rescue the whale in spite of personal danger and a lack of reward other than feeling good about it. Tell them they're heros and they'll brush it off -- they just felt they *had* to do something. Most people feel that way, most of the time.
Leadership matters -- I give you Hitler versus Roosevelt; the American Army in WWII vs a lynch mob. Knowledge matters--I give you an RN at a disaster site, instantly and instinctively going into triage mode, vs. the average Joe who has no idea what to do and is waiting for somebody who *does* know. And whom they can follow, and will follow, willingly.
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